Jim Shepard - Flights

In the third quarter the score was 35–7 Milford, and Louis swept around a block and caught the ball carrier’s helmet flush in the face, shattering his face mask. Dom and Biddy stood up, trying to get a better look. “Oh, Jesus,” Dom said, as though he had no more energy for this. Louis was sitting with his head down, trainers and teammates around him, and when one of them moved, Biddy could see jagged pieces of face mask. Louis was making circular motions with his head, bits of blood and teeth beading out along a line of spittle.

“Oh, Jesus,” Dom repeated, turning away.

They stayed a few minutes longer but Dom insisted they go back; they didn’t all have to wait to check on Louis, and there was no sense staying for the end of the game.

Back at his uncle’s, they announced what had happened and quieted the big table to a hush. Ginnie wailed, “Oh, God, I knew it.” Biddy left Mickey to field questions and returned to the TV, shaken.

During The March of the Wooden Soldiers Dom came back, and moved through the dining room faster than the family’s questions seemed to allow. He came into the den and fell heavily into the chair beside Biddy.

Michael followed, asking if he was sure he couldn’t get him anything. Dom was sure. Michael hesitated, and left.

“How’s Louis?” Biddy said.

“Fine. Toothless Joe.”

A headache commercial came on. It was an animation of a head with electric bolts throbbing through it. They watched in silence.

“Is that what you got your thing for?” Biddy asked quietly. “The things they did with your head?”

Dom gazed at the screen. “What?” He rubbed his eyes. “The encephalogram?” He seemed exhausted, sad. “No, that was for epilepsy. That was a test for epilepsy.”

“Why’d they test you for that?”

“I don’t know. Why do they test you for anything? They were short of cash. I was thrashing around in my sleep, Ginnie couldn’t wake me up. I had something in the Navy and they thought there might have been brain damage.”

“Brain damage?” Biddy’s eyes widened.

He changed the channel. “They don’t know. What difference does it make anyhow?”

“Don’t talk like that,” Biddy said, more moved than he wanted to be. “Do you still take pills for it or anything?”

“I’m at that stage now where it doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s almost the end of the line.”

“No, it isn’t.” He detested and feared adults when they spoke like this.

“It isn’t?” He snorted. “Everything’s coming down around my ears. The job, the wife, now this. You know what you do in my position? Take a guess. What do you do when it’s fourth and forty-one? Punt.” He sat back and ran his palm across the back of his neck. “And sure as shit if I did it’d be blocked.”

That night although they got back late he went right out with Teddy’s rifle, allowing only the barest minimum of elapsed time for his parents to fall asleep before creeping down the stairs and out the front door. He carried the ladder silently around to the back of the garage himself, teetering under its awkward weight, and set it against the side of the building, where it promptly sideslipped and slid off the roof onto the patio with a terrifying crash. He ducked behind the garage, throwing the rifle a few yards away in a hedge, and waited. The garage light went on. He crouched, wondering what to do, what to say. The light went out. Finally he eased out of his crouch and retrieved the rifle from the hedge. He brought the ladder back around and, after a second thought, left it on the floor of the garage to account for the crash, then hurried down the driveway and into the house.

The door swung away from him and his father grabbed his arm in the dark. “What the hell are you doing out there?” he whispered. The lights came on. His mother and father flanked him. His mother’s eyes widened at the gun. “What are you doing with this?” she said, voice rising. He didn’t answer and she shook him, his neck snapping back. He started to cry and they shook him harder, demanding answers, and finally led him up to his room. They stalked back and forth past his bed and he insisted the gun was Teddy’s and he wasn’t shooting at anyone. His mother finally threw up her hands and left, taking much of the noise downstairs with her. He lay quiet, his neck hurting.

His father sat on the edge of the bed, scratching the top of his head and rubbing the hair around, looking at the floor. “I don’t know about you, kid,” he said. “We don’t have enough to worry about?”

Biddy sniffled.

“You look thin. You eating enough?” His father laughed at himself. “No. Of course you’re not eating enough. You’re never eating enough. I got those vitamins downstairs; I want you to use them.” Biddy nodded. His father blew some air from his mouth. “Your mother’s upset right now. Go easy on her the next couple days. Don’t do anything more to get on her nerves. She’s unhappy.”

“What’s she unhappy about?”

“Everything. Lots of things. Different things. You know your mother; she gets frustrated. Things don’t work out the way she likes. She worries about you two. She’s got no patience, she gets mad, and then you do something, or Kristi does something, and she, you know … explodes.”

Biddy wiped his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know, I know. I get mad, too; I’m no better. C’mon,” he sighed. “Slide down.” Biddy straightened his legs under the covers and his father slapped his thigh and stood up. He paused at the door as if to add something, but said only, “Get some sleep,” the yellow light from the hall narrowing and disappearing with the words.

My brother told me that everything was going to be different soon. I asked him how he knew and he said he was going to make it different. I don’t believe him. He can’t make anything different. He came outside to play with me the day it snowed six inches and we dug tunnels for Stupid. He wouldn’t let me hide in them. He was scared I’d get buried and suffocate. I hid in them anyway, and he pulled me out by my boots, and got snow up one leg. I hate it here and nobody cares. We made Sanka later and the wind came and shook the windows. I told him I hoped Stupid froze outside. I told him I hoped some Sisters were outside, too, and froze with him. I think everybody should be put in a box until they do something good, and then they can be let out. All my brother can do is things like when he was on the roof, which was stupid. They just catch him and nothing changes except he gets in trouble. He’s going to do something else, I know, but he’ll just get caught. He can’t do anything. He can’t make anything different.

Outside it was clear and cold and objects in the distance had a special clarity. Inside folding chairs squeaked all the way down the line: every boy and girl could see the blue sky through the windows and school had been out for half an hour, and yet here they were.

Sister leaned into the piano and the notes rose to the empty space high above them. The wood around the stage was old and filled the room with a damp, comforting smell. The winter sun came through the windows in great bands and swept across the maroon-and-black tiles in dull streaks.

Our Lady of Peace was forming a choir. It was, as Father Rubino often said without enthusiasm, Sister Theresa’s idea. Sister Eileen didn’t support it; Sister Beatrice thought her first-graders too young; Sister Marie Bernadette thought the same of her second-graders, and Sister Mary of Mercy claimed her sixth-graders were too far behind in their other work already. Mrs. Duffy knew her eighth-graders would never support it. Mrs. Studerus offered her fourth-graders, but at that point Sister was in no mood for it to help, and had decided to use, as an example, her own class, and only her own class.